How times change

Yesterday, while watching Madonna at Wembley, the stadium was pin-cushioned with thousands of tiny points of light. This time around the light sources were mobile phone screens. Thirty years ago, when I started attending concerts in earnest, I saw the same pin-cushioning. In those days the light sources were cigarette ends. There wasn’t a cigarette end to be seen at Wembley yesterday.

How times change.Â Or do they? As happened with cigarettes, mobile phones emit light at concerts, are habit-forming and appear to have the capacity to make people ill.

Bravo, Dipak! One of the intellectual roots of my student years has to be Tom Paxton’s “Love Me, I’m a Liberal.” He found just the right balance of cynicism and wit to deliver the message; he just never had enough people pay attention!

Well, they STILL don’t pay attention; and I fear that, as a result, my capacity for cynicism has overwhelmed my capacity for wit! Through those lenses I saw Live Earth as just another feel-good event that created little more than an illusion of social conscience. I would rather see the media celebrate people who do things that make a difference, preferably at a grass-roots level, than cover all those glitterati trying to show the world how much they “care.” One recent case in point has been coverage of institutions (including restaurants and even the San Francisco city government) that no longer have anything to do with bottled water, because tap water is just as good (and cheaper).